The Bastille has vanished, the fan remaining as souvenir to be sold for a few sous, and fluttered by the cheek of some light-hearted grisette. ‘Tiens!’ she exclaims, ‘La prise de La Bastille! c’est belle, n’est-ce pas?’ as happily ignorant of the trend of events as majesty in its gilded chamber. ‘Mais,’ says the poor king, ‘c’est une révolte!’ ‘Sire, it is not a revolt,—it is a revolution.’
The era of universal liberty has indeed arrived. In ‘Les Droits de l’Homme, 1789,’ Liberty dons her cap, seats herself upon a pedestal to be saluted by all good citizens with song, dance, and flowers; the former, duly inscribed on the fan, commencing ‘Veillons au Salut de l’empire.’
In a variation of this subject La Liberté holds a plummet and triangle in her right hand, in the other a staff surmounted by a cap of Liberty; the pedestal inscribed, ‘Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, Unité.’
In a third fan La Liberté becomes ‘Patrone des Français,’ and is still provided with plummet and cap.
In ‘Le Serment Civique, 1789,’ the attributes only of Liberty appear, in the shape of three flaming hearts and cap on a flaming altar. Mayor Bailly and Lafayette take the oath, to the accompaniment of a song commencing ‘Français, quand je pense à nos maux.’
The Revolution is therefore sanctioned—one of its earliest results being Le Déménagement du Clergé. On the fan we see a group of bishops, monks, nuns, a number of servants carrying furniture and other effects. A bishop, with pipe and bottle, is seated on the top of a baggagewagon on which is inscribed, ‘J’ai perdu mes bénéfices, Rien n’égale ma douleur.’ A monk, also smoking, is riding on the horse and flourishing a flag inscribed, ‘Guidon.’ ‘Messieurs of the Clergy, you have to be shaved; if you wriggle too much, you will get cut.’[137]
In the ‘Désespoir des Pensionnaires,’ we are introduced to a group of figures who are bewailing their loss; a messenger in cockaded hat is delivering the notices.
Cockades, indeed, were at this period ‘de rigueur’—the ladies wore them in front of their head-dresses—wore gauze bonnets trimmed on either side with them, a great bow of tricoloured streamers at the back. Stripes everywhere—stripes and cockades, cockades and stripes—stripes on the dresses, slippers, and even the huge muffs of the women; stripes on the waistcoats, stockings, and gloves of the men. The patriotic Frenchmen and Frenchwomen of 1789 were the very incarnation of the tricolour; it was the symbol of the gospel of the Revolution, Blue of Liberty, White of Equality, Red of Fraternity.[138]
The Fête de la Fédération, 1790, is commemorated on a fan giving in the centre a view of the altar in the Champ de Mars, with Lafayette waving the tricolour, the fan incribed ‘Le Serment fait sur l’Autel de la Patrie le 14 Juillet 1790, la voix de Mr. la Fayette, Major de la Confédération s’est fait entendre au Champ de Mars.’ On either side are busts of King Louis and Lafayette, inscribed ‘Louis XVI., Roi des Français né à Versailles le 23 Aoust 1754.’ ‘M. De La Fayette Com. Géné. de la Garde Nat. Parisienne.’
On another fan the altar, with surrounding booths, arches, etc., and groups of soldiers dancing. On either side eight verses of a poem, commencing, ‘Voilà la Fête de la Fédération,’ etc., to the air ‘Vive Henri IV.’[139]